Fans took the microphone Sunday afternoon at TwinsFest to grill Twins officials on a host of issues, ranging from where general manager Thad Levine gets his hair cut to the oft-talked about Twins’ payroll to the two hottest names on the market, Bryce Harper and Manny Machado.

Among his most interesting answers, Levine detailed the team’s thought process on mega-deals, making sure the team was being equally attentive to the “who” and the “when.”

“As a market, I think we’re going to be able to play on players like that,” Levine told the assembled crowd at Target Field, “but probably realistically maybe one at a time so we’ve got to make sure we get the ‘who’ right because we’re not going to sign one of the guys this year and then come to these two gentleman (team president Dave St. Peter and team owner Jim Pohlad) two years from now and say it’s time to sign the next one.”

Although Levine refrained from letting on whether Machado and Harper checked the first box, the Twins appear to be taking the opposite stance to the division rival White Sox, who have been pursuing both free agents despite their window not yet being open.

“My view … for doing it is the best time to acquire players of that magnitude is when your window to win is wide open,” Levine said to the crowd. “Not when you’re got your fingers underneath the window and you’re trying to jam the window open. I want to do it when we’re projected to win the Central and we’re ready to put our foot on someone’s throat.”

The Cleveland Indians are still widely expected to be division favorites, though Levine did note that he thought the Twins were close to that window.

The GM also addressed the potential of locking up the Twins’ young core pieces to longer-term deals.

“Without getting into names, we’re actively having some of those conversations behind the scenes and we as a club would like nothing more than to be able to announce one, two, three of those types of extensions at some point here in spring training,” he told the crowd.

Schoop, Cruz excited to reunite

Jonathan Schoop is so excited to reunite with the man he calls “Papa,” the player he helped sell on Minnesota.

Schoop and Nelson Cruz were teammates when they were both in Baltimore, and Schoop said Cruz helped teach him the game.

“I love the guy so much. I love to play with him,” Schoop said. I know he will get everybody better. He got me better.”

Cruz had complimentary words for his friend in return.

“I’ve known him since he was coming up, and I know what he can do. He’s grown up a lot since we played together, but we’re always talking, even when he was on the other side,” Cruz said. “We kept in touch. He called for advice about hitting, parts of life, and we’re really good friends.”

Next up: Fort Myers

The three-day TwinsFest came to a close Sunday afternoon. In total, 11,500 fans trekked to Target Field to attend the annual fan convention.

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